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Welcome back to Never Been Promoted where we’re here to help 1000000 entrepreneurs get better at entrepreneurship, to help them unleash their entrepreneur. And today, we're gonna be talking with Josh, Joshua Lee. Josh, how are you? I am amazing, Thomas. I mean, again, I'm excited. You and I already had, like, an amazing conversation. We didn't even hit record. So, like, where is it gonna go from here? We had to stop. Well, listen. We're gonna meet The Dopamine Dealer of LinkedIn here in a minute. But, just before we get going, guys, if this is your first time listening to the show, visiting the YouTube channel, for first of all, thank you. And I hope it's the first of many and if you've been here before, I really truly appreciate you coming back. Like I said, you know, we're trying to help you unleash your entrepreneur. I'm trying to help you learn, you know, micro mentor learn little things from different entrepreneurs from those who've succeeded and failed right in the thick of it. And and the metaphor of kind of cut the tie is to cut the tide of the stuff that holds you back the people that hold you back the excuses you know you make and those fears you hold on to for some reason see that you're not alone in this journey because it is hard as entrepreneurs. And and if you could pull one thing from, our guests today, you're gonna be well on your way. Last thing. Listen. The the 5 stars on Apple and Spotify and Amazon Music means so much for the community and the guests to get more exposure to get what we're trying to out there. So if you could do that, that's great. And if you can follow YouTube at never been promoted,
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I would certainly personally appreciate that. But enough of this. Let's get to The Dopamine Dealer of LinkedIn. Joshua, how are you? And, where are you where are you calling from today, Herb? Thomas, man. It's, I'm amazing. You know? I get to be able to spend the next, hour or so with you and and our audience listening in. So, I mean, I'm here in Austin, Texas, and, you know, I've been here for a while. You know, people go, how long have you lived in Austin? Because, like, these days, everyone's, like, implant from Austin. Right? Like, oh, well, I've been in Austin for, like, 6 months. I I moved here in, 2,000. So I've been here for a bit. I left for a couple years, went out to California,
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realized it wasn't for me, and I I've been back at least since 2008. So long enough to say that I live here pretty well. You're pretty much from there. You're that was before the boom. Well, so so let's start with the fun icebreaker. I like to do different ones. No. That's too negative. Let's go with, How'd you do your hair? No. No. Well, that's clear. We're gonna get to that. No. Your hair is your brand. We're gonna you're gonna I hope you introduced that at some point. What's been the most ridiculous thing someone has tricked you into doing?
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Most ridiculous thing that someone's tricked me into doing? That's an amazing question. I mean, there's been a lot of different aspects. You know, I mean, I've you know what? I don't know if it was a trick, but I I it was it was crazy, amazing, in front of the same time. So years ago, when my son was first born, he was I don't know. Not first born, but a couple years old. It was One of the shows that we used to watch together was American Ninja Warrior. And he looks at me, he goes, dad, can you do that? Well, dude, I didn't wanna be the dad that couldn't say, no, I can't do that. So I started training and started going in, and it's been about 8, 9 years now, but I actually went down to Houston, Texas, and I competed and hit the button, ran the whole thing for American Ninja Warriors. So, like, it was ridiculous? Yes. Tricked? Maybe my son tricked BB and he would do it, but, like, you know, that's what they that's what our kids do. They ask us to do something, and as dads, We try and show up and show there's opportunity to be able to kinda keep on and do those fun things. That's great. That's, like, a really good too. But I I mean, it is ridiculous, meaning, like, you never would have thought of it. I'll tell you mine's that simple, and I got I lost a bet that I had to shave my arms with. And,
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Yeah. I saw 22 years later. So I'm still shave my arms because once you do that, it's over. You can't let it go back. There's like this half inch level that stabs you. Yeah. You just you just you're like, I'm shaving again. That's it. So that's why I'm never shaving legs because it's I I imagine the same thing happens. Well, I'm gonna be you know, let's just be a 100% transparent. I mean, I grow horrible at chest hair. So, you know, I started shaving that years ago
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and never looked back. So I'm like a Filipino guy. Boy, I I do not grow chest here. I have I am lucky. I have 0 chest. My little soul patch in the mouth. The people are like, damn. These guys are just going in there. You also powers, like, male symbol. Alright. So hey. Listen. You're you're, you know, heavily into branding this. You know, give us your backstory a little bit of how you kind of, you know, got to where you are today. You know, it's interesting. You know, I I won't go as far back as, you know, my you know, selling candy out of my locker and, you know, school or how my mom even told me that I was even an entrepreneur before that. She couldn't figure out why I was wanting to go to summer school. And then when she got the call from the teachers that I learned how to count cards, and I was taking money from other kids, you know, there there goes a backstory. But, like, seriously, like I like that you're a cow I I did the same thing. Like, you know, you figure out how to how how to manipulate a deck with a mechanic's deck, and I'm like, yeah. They'll I'm sure all day we're gonna There's numbers. I mean, every in this world, everything's a number. And if you can actually understand the numbers, I mean, it's amazing how many doors can actually open for you and the opportunities because most people aren't paying attention to these things. And, you know, that's kinda where I I found myself. I mean, I 20 years ago, 2003, 2004, I had been previously, got into the real estate market, became a broker, realized really quickly on the right in the wall after moving to California that, like, this is a bad deal. Like, people are selling them their souls to be able to refinance their house, and they're gonna find themselves in a bad situation. So I left. Had a buddy of mine bring me into the online advertising world, back then PPC, pay per click. You know, I was only in that company for about 2, 3 months because the fact the owner shifted from being a business owner to a business operator. And there's a huge difference. Entrepreneurs don't really understand that difference of being in the company versus on the company sometimes, and it really shifts. You look like you wanna say something. I do. Yeah.
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It's telling me that it's not recording.
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I get record on my side. You do? Yeah.
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I apologize. I just don't give me I'm gonna refresh. I'm gonna come out and come back in. Yes. I'll do. I've had this issue all day today where I've had rescheduled one of the podcasts because I couldn't
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And if we have to, you wanna feel better, you're not gonna hurt my feelings.
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It's recording now. So weird.
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The good thing is we have amazing editors. You know? Oh, there.
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Well, I'm just I'm it it's it's a downstream problem. Alright. So,
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back it up just a bit. I'm so sorry about that. We had a small technical question. Don't even worry about it. So we'll get into it. Right? I got I got in the online advertising industry back in early 2000, and, you know, it was it was an interesting place to be in, brother. Again, I started working with, a company that a friend of mine had brought me into, and the owner at that time was a business owner. Right? And he decided that he wanted to be a business operator. And and I'll be honest, man. Most entrepreneurs, most business people don't actually understand the difference between a business owner and a business operator, versus someone versus working on the business versus in the business. I'm gonna be honest, dude. Like, after 16 companies, there's a lot of people in this world that should not be working in their company after a certain bit. They need to be able to hire the right people to be able to expand the company. I'd love to get to that point. We can definitely drive into this, because he shut down my company quickly. And so, like, I was like, okay. What am I gonna do? I actually started realizing I'm an only child. So I realized relationships were one of the most powerful things that I had. And that actually helped me land one of my first big clients that really shifted the way I looked at the world and and things that we're doing. It was a company that most people forgot about these days, which is MySpace. I mean, our kids probably don't even know the word, know the name, but you and I, we've been around for a bit, and MySpace is, you know, one of those are the beginning giants that kinda came in, and I helped them design one of the first social media ads to be able to monetize their traffic that most social media is based off of today. So, like, I've had a hand in monetizing the web for many years, the last 2 decades. And, you know, I went through a lot of different aspects, Thomas, of being able to build every single company you could have ever imagined around different acronyms. The CPC, the CPA, the CPM, CPL. Like, if it had an opportunity to monetize online, I built a company around me to be able to do those things. Because that's what I was taught, to be able to concentrate on how much on the money aspect, and don't worry about everything else. One of the big things that that led me to is outside looking in, I was running 10, 11 different companies, multiple figures, 6, 7, 8 figures. I was successful. Right? I had I had a wife, I had kids, I didn't worry, I had lots of employees, but I was miserable. I was not happy because, again, it was all about the money, and there was no impact that I could stand in front of my kids. And so for me, that's where I went through a life reset about 9 years ago. Because, honestly, dude, I was staring at the wall many times in my office with the doors shut. That office was not only a sanctuary for me, but a coffin. I contemplated if I should even be on this planet. People go like, no one knew. They just thought, oh, dude, Josh is running businesses. He's amazing, because we base success off of monetary value. And so I went through went through a reset, closed down all my companies. My lawyers told me it's gonna take 3 years to be able to kinda go through the whole divorce. I said, I can make more money. I can't make more time. And so I didn't wanna take my kids through that. Reset, 36, moved back with my parents, a little bit under $1,000 in my name, and was like, where am I gonna go with this? At first, I wrote my book. Balance is bullshit. Right? How to live a more integrated life. To be able to share all the things that I had learned that I was not doing, that I wasn't top of my parents or by my mentors at the time. And my pendulum had swung. I had the man bun, the mala beads. Dude, I was gonna be a guru. Realized really quickly I was not a guru. I didn't want to be an, you know, a personal guru. And I was forgetting my past to forge a new future. And so, kind of that's where Standout Authority was born, the company I run now, is how do I actually take that humanization that I was trying to find, and pair it with marketing, thus I found myself today being able to work with men and women. I used to read their books on how to be able to start my own company 20 years ago. How to be able to educate, inspire, and draw people in, not sell them, and use a platform like LinkedIn. So and then that's a little long, but I I I feel it's important when we kinda go through these things, especially you're talking to entrepreneurs that, you know, are really trying to be able to shift where they're at.
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Yeah. Well, no. It it's relevant because of the and not just because I have a company with the name relevant in it. I mean, it's relevant because, even, like, you know, 3 or so years in my own agency, and then I'm in the business for sure because that's how you start it. And and then and that's totally normal, by the way, and fine if if you've you have to start in the business. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, you're all gonna start that way. And if if you've got enough money and experience, you might be able to do it from day 1 to be working on it right away, but that just takes capital to quite honestly. Right. And knowledge and so you're in it. You're a services, but even now I'm like, you know, I'm pretty sure you know, I'm 48. So I'm pretty sure like 2 years now. I'm not going to be one of me doing this exact thing not that I want to close that business. I just want to make sure that I don't have to work in it so much. Yeah. What else can I do though to kind of make money? And so when you talk about having a reset and sitting in your room, you know, I have a studio. This is my office. I built it. It's nearly soundproof. It is absolutely you can run away and, like, you come in here to get quiet, but same time you you you know? I know what you mean. You can have such a thought of what am I doing in my life staring at this wall right now? Why why do I I know exactly where you where you've been. I I I feel it. Maybe not we're not that different age, my friend. I'm 46. So I'm like, I'm right there with you. So you've seen, like, your I I've been there years. Kinda what's the point of this? And so, you know, and, it's so I appreciate that with it and maybe maybe just just give me, like, a you know, I love to have this kind of ask the moment. Right? You said you you talked about, but the moment to become an entrepreneur, the moment you knew you were gonna be on your own, did it did it come to you at some point in your career, but you just ignored it, and then it fired back up later that you just then you recalled it? I mean, a little bit. Right? I mean, it was it was going through I mean, I always had a drive to be able to see opportunity where others didn't,
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but that had to be crafted, right, to be the right entrepreneur. Because, initially, I could see, you know, around corners, so to speak. I could actually see opportunities to be able to make money. And that was easy. Right? Because I understood numbers. And so that kinda took me to different places. I mean, look, I was the youngest corporate account executive. We can go back based on our age. At GTE Wireless, AKA Singular Wireless, you know, like, back those companies like that, there was always opportunity. But, you know, the first time was, okay, I'm gonna get get in the real estate business, and you know what? Instead of me being just a real estate, you know, broker, I wanna be the broker side and actually have that opportunity. And so that's where I stepped into it. But then I just got got turned off. There were so many different aspects that were kinda coming in. I said, I just don't wanna do this anymore. Right? Like, this is this and I think it's the industry. You've gotta be able to find something that you're passionate about. Right. And for me, initially, getting into online advertising, this was something new, this was something fresh, this was something that I saw people really weren't into, so it kept my interest. And, look, it's entrepreneurs. Most of us have ADHD. Let's just be honest. Like, a lot of us, we need those shiny objects to be able to keep us going, keep us excited. But once you actually get into something and you, quote unquote, master it to a point that and you're not actually doing it for the right reasons, there's no fulfillment. You don't wake up excited about being able to do that job anymore. And so for me, being an entrepreneur, it really was to to where I am now, I got laid off, and I was sitting on my couch, like, how am I gonna do this? Right? Like, well, I'm gonna take my relationships and be able to take it to the next level, and I was working 12 hour days. Could I do that now? Dude, I don't I don't think I could work 12 hour days. My family would leave me, and my kids will be pissed. And I mean, I got too many softball games on the weekends to be able to Right. My daughter to be able to do that kind of aspect. So every entrepreneur is different. My wife recently made that that jump about 3 years ago. She left corporate. And, honestly, she was scared. And I said, look, until you can you're not scared anymore. You're willing to be able to jump and go, look, you know what, whatever happens, happens. You know, we'll figure it out. I think that's when people need to make that jump to entrepreneurship. But if you always have one hand on the guard wheel as you're leaning over the the bridge, you're never gonna be able to make that leap into entrepreneurship. Right? You've gotta be able to release and know that there's gonna there you have to depend on yourself. No one else. Yep. You're,
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you're gonna you're gonna learn how to fly with no wings. And and you're right. We're seeing a couple times then get back up. Okay. Occasionally you're at the floor. But the but you tell you how that safety net gone you you have you know, I I remember mine start off as a side hustle and I literally probably worked on 85 percent of the time on my business while working someplace else. Even then I thought I was focused and then when you get laid off and you're like, alright. Now there's like, I can't I'm just gonna go full on on it. You don't even realize the level of focus you can you can take. And and that no safety net triggers that a 100%. And and for me, I mean I mean, how would you define kind of entrepreneurship for yourself, though? Like, what's it what's the definition that you'd give it to yourself?
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The definition of entrepreneur and and here's the whole piece. Right? There's entrepreneurship. Like, I, at this point, consider myself a business owner with an entrepreneurial mindset. Right? Because there's there's a huge difference between an entrepreneur and a business owner with an entrepreneurial mindset. As an entrepreneur, you're learning your career, you're hustling, you're you are taking a 100% on, and it's all you. Right? Being able to go through honestly, too, I think people if you can see yourself an entrepreneur after doing it for a very long time, you're close to burnout at the same time. You've been burning the candle at both ends. That's what a true entrepreneur is. You will go all in, not just a 100%, but a 1000%, to be able to make your path. And no matter how many times you get knocked down, you continue to get back up. As a business owner with an entrepreneurial mindset, you still have that drive, that passion, but you realize it's not all on you. And I think that's the biggest shift that people need to understand to be able to make. Because if it's all on you, you can't be everything to everyone, even in your own business. You have to in the beginning, like you said, unless you get, like, a a a wad of cash that gets thrown your way or investment. But we need to be able to understand what our superpower is, and then be able to focus on that, and allow the other people that do what they do best to be able to support us, to be able to truly be able to create an amazing business. And entrepreneurs that succeed see that, that they are not the end all to everything.
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Yeah. It's funny because, as I've taken my path, you know, you you you have choices. So you can, you know, do these services. You can try to build a product or whatever else. And I was thinking, man, it'd be cool to do a be a franchise owner at one point. And I'm like, but when you're first starting off in your journey, it is probably the wrong unless you just really want a blueprint to follow. If you have any inkling of 0 to hero, I gotta do it myself, do not buy a franchise. You will. No. No. Because, I mean, you've gotta be able to follow the path. They're requiring you to be able to get in there that you they've already got it laid out for you, and it's, paint by numbers, so to speak. Right. Now now that I've gone through it from 0 to hero, you know, I'm I'm I'm like, that sounds great, actually. Can you give me a paint by numbers color? I can
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be cheap for it. Easy path. I think so many it got so high it's entrepreneurs, like, one of the I think they were just releasing top 10 jobs that people wanna be. Entrepreneurs in the top 10 still. And I think it was a lot higher in the past just because the fact there was this change. They're like, oh my I don't have to work for anyone. I think it's went down a little bit because people realized, wow, this actually takes a lot of work. And 2, we're living in a post COVID world where, you know, most people don't have to go into the work workplace every single day. Now we're seeing shifts in that. So, like, okay. Well, maybe I don't need this entire stress because it's it's the weight of the world on you a lot of times.
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Well, tell dive into your current venture a little bit. What what do you kinda, like, what what give me the 92nd on it and and, you know, maybe a success story that's going with it. Yeah, man. I mean, again, it's it's really interesting. As I mentioned before, like,
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I was trying to be able to, you know, do the humanization. I was gonna be a life coach guru, and I realized that one of the biggest things was I was had such a hand in monetizing the web. I need to be able to shift because the way that we were going, especially for future generations, I I didn't like. Right? It was all about money first. Let me sell a whole bunch of things, and I don't care if I actually help anyone. When I actually realized how to be able to shift with Standout Authority was, man, there's a platform like LinkedIn, which you know as well, that is underserved, underutilized, and most people just get on there and go, hey, Thomas. Ever thought about using LinkedIn to get leads? And they pitch you a 1,000 different people hoping to get the one sale when all in essence, they're just pissing off 999 people. That's right. And I mean, this is why people get turned off by LinkedIn, but they forget that there's massive, massive opportunity. You talk about audience, when you talk about decision makers, when you talk about educated people, they're all on that platform. Even visibility wise, you know, LinkedIn, their organic visibility is phenomenal. Add in index highly, highly indexing on Google, and now, I've been really blessed to be able to work with LinkedIn on the backside on some of their beta stuff. What they're doing with Microsoft owning LinkedIn, and then their partnership with OpenAI, well, ownership of OpenAI, let's just be honest, dude, LinkedIn's the future of business, the future of work. I mean, when generative search comes out and they're using LinkedIn as the basis of that, it's gonna change. So, like, what we do, I'm not here to be able to get my clients more sales. I'm here to be able to get them advocates. So when we come in, I am very blessed to be able to work with, as I said, men and women from people like Dan Sullivan, Joe Polish, Tony Robbins, John Maxwell, like, amazing humans and c level executives at Microsoft. Right? People at Gartner, at major companies to be able to help them own their personal brand, to humanize the overall essence of what their company is, to be able to then educate, inspire, and draw people in, and have them choose to work with them rather than being sold. So, like, our goal is to be able to build massive advocates for our clients, and let the buy product become clients. Yeah. And so that's what we need to do from from building out messaging, to content, to the brand, to all these things. Because, unless you're a car person, Thomas, we haven't talked if you are or not, but most people in this world might like cars, but they're not like a car guy. Right? And if I was like, alright. If I said Mercedes, Porsche, or Tesla, which one can you name the person that associates with it? Most people would go Elon Musk. Most people can't tell you who run Porsche or Mercedes, and they've been around decades longer. So that's the power of that personal brand, that human humanization of a brand. Because love him or hate him, guess what? He's gonna continue to be able to take that whatever he touches gets extra value from him being a part of it. And that's what we get to do with the clients.
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What do you so so one of the things that we run into a lot with just meeting people are just, you know, is the shift of personal brand when you're coming from, corporate world to become a business owner or you started a business and you're like, yeah, I don't want to be identified with that anymore. I want to kind of miss the shift. And and and and, you know, keeping it to LinkedIn, you know, and I'll share I'll share first what we, you know, I some people just pick another social media platform to become that personal. And there's a there's Yeah. What is your general strategy when someone's kind of personally rebranding, but they have to tie to the past because it pays bills, but they gotta go to the future
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where they're wanting their bills to be paid from? But, I mean, those are their shifts. It's a story. Right? People use LinkedIn as a to put their resume up, and they realize, like, unless you're looking for a job I mean, hell, Thomas, even if you're looking for a job, don't write your LinkedIn profile like a resume. It needs to be your career journey. It needs to tell a story of where you've been, where you're at, and where you're going. If you do that in the right way because, again, most of I'm sure you Joshua see this all the time. I'll see someone like, oh, CEO of Standout Authority. I'm like, what did you do before that? Right? Because now you've got this gap, not only in your working career, but within your life between you and your audience. And so, like, when you look at me and you talk about, well, how do you actually make this shift? You start telling the story. You you have to be real and raw versus overproduced. And so when you start going that when you look at mine, one of my first jobs is I worked at Chili's as a server. Right? Like, you know how many people reach out to me and like, dude, you worked at Chili's? Me too. Commonality. As human beings, we look for these commonalities. So no matter what someone's doing, going from corporate to their own business, whatever it might be, the more they tell their story and they're open about where they've been and why they're changing, And again, always, if you're still at that company, make sure that you are staying by the the standards and the social guidelines by that company, and have your messaging in the DMs to be able to build those relationships of what you're doing next. But if you highlight yourself I I've never really played in the corporate world. So like, coming for me to be able to give that that advice, you need to sit down with my amazing wife, Rachel B. Lee. Again, Joshua B. Lee, Rachel B. Lee. Our our fam our brand is the family.
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Yeah. That's
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good. But, like, she came from Microsoft, and, like, when she started owning her personal brand, Thomas, all of a sudden they're like, hey, I think you wanna be able to take over the Microsoft podcast network. Hey, you've got a rebrand in the entire, Microsoft partner network. Hey, why don't you lead that based on what you're showing up and how you're showing up on LinkedIn? The company started leaning into her and realizing the value they can do, and that's where I think companies need to shift to, is because, even in corporate, they need to understand that power of those personal brands, you empower those employees. If you allow them to be able to own that, it not only helps them, but it helps your that company as well. So, like, that's that shift. Like, start sharing things in the guidelines, but but again, don't hold back. Yeah. Well If you're not if you're not putting out, like, negative things, I mean, like, look, I tell everyone to be polarizing. My wife goes, well, be careful. Some people work for companies that'd be careful on how polarizing. Not saying polarizing in in an evil way. We all know a lot of people in this world that are polarizing in a way that's, like doesn't add value, but polarizing and drawing your right audience and pushing away the wrong.
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Yeah. Well, you're you're you're a great point with, though I will say your your LinkedIn's your LinkedIn, and a company I don't believe should have any right to it. They they could say, hey. Listen. You have a professional photo. I get that, but it's yours. It's not theirs. You know, and and I We don't We barely own it too. LinkedIn actually owns it. But Right. I'm renting it from now. I don't need someone else running my space as well. Yeah. Yeah. I believe, I believe you're you're spot on with the idea. And I we encourage companies this whole time to say, you know, raise the personal brands of the people that you're investing in and invest back to you because people even in the B2B sales, they buy from people. They don't buy from you as a company. Your brand as a company is supported by the people and the actions you've done. So if you can raise that and get people to be more humanized, your chance of winning deals goes up. Oh, yeah. That is not always the way because, you know, people are so attribution metrics driven. They're like, oh, there's no quantitative way to do that. I'm like, yeah. That's okay. It could be qualitative. It could just be generally our people are better online.
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You have to realize, like, I you you I love that you said that too, and this is why you and I align so well because I always say, like, look, there's no b to b or b to c. You know, business to business, like, business to consumer, we're just ways to diversify ad spend that were created by guys like you and I, you know, a couple decades ago. Right? Just to make more money. Right? Everything is HDH, human to human, because every company is run by another human being. Most marketers forget that. And, like, we don't buy from brands, and this is why you see these different aspects when someone stands up and stands out, and you actually connect. A good example of that was T Mobile. God, I'm forgetting the guy the the president of T Mobile's name, but he saved that company, a couple years back when they were going through because he said, look. Here's who I am. This is what, you know, this is what's going on. Either you're gonna love me or hate me, and we saw that shift in that brand, and people started getting behind him. I mean, I remember I was on Clubhouse with him all the time. I mean, like, we had a blast, and he was just being him, and he really shifted that entire brand of that company for T Mobile. And because, again, he allowed the humanness of him to stand out, and people go, oh, I've never heard that good things about T Mobile, but I like this guy, so I'm gonna get behind him. Yeah. And well, and it's funny because so from a branding standpoint, right, you said Porsche, Mercedes.
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At some point, someone led that brand or they had a they had and if you can get to the point where your brand becomes its own thing, like a Nike or whatever else or Tiffany's or whatever, Awesome. It's not behind anyone. And that's a dream spot to be in. But the reality is, it's one of them. As not a trillion. Smaller Yeah. Owner, you're you're tied to it. I'm I'm I'm you're not getting away from it unless you've set the whole thing up to be, you know, Zapier's and AIs and and you're it's in the background, and it's it's faceless, and it's intended to be so. Yeah. You're you're gonna be part of it. So you don't have to be in it. It'd be you're gonna be part of it no matter what. So, I I I find that fascinating. Dude, I I made a
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I made a commercial years ago. I was, building one of the first social search engines. I was way ahead of my time. This is, like, 2006, 2007 of my my search network. But what I did wrong after, you know, massive millions invested being able to go to this whole thing and being too ahead of the curve and not pulling my audience on what they were open for yet, which, of course, I pitched to Google Plus. They're like, ah, that sucks. And then, of course, Google Plus came out. But, I did a Gap commercial. Remember the old Gap commercials? You you had no clue what the commercial was till the end. They're like, Gap. And the whole time, you're just watching people dance. They're wearing clothes. I mean, like, that's that whole piece. Right? Like, it is so difficult for most of us cannot. Now if we see this, we're just like, oh, that's that's Gap. We we know what it is. But I think that's the biggest thing. Like, most companies can't get there without that human connection. They wanna be able to find that commonality with someone that actually is running that company.
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Yeah. It's funny how much you like insurance companies ads, but how much you hate insurance companies. It's a great example of that as well. What's a big challenge you guys face in your business?
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You know, one of the biggest challenges that we continue to to be able to see, and and we're shifting a little bit. Right? Like, we've I've been blessed to work with some of the biggest influencers in the all in their spaces. One thing that I always see too and, you know, love them to death, but, you know, there's a lot of people you'll bring in that they're experts in their field, and they'll hire you to be able to kinda run their LinkedIn. They're like, hey, I think you should do this instead. Like, wait a minute. You hired us to be able to run your LinkedIn. This is what we do better than anyone. Like, you know, let's go through. And so, like, that's one of the biggest challenges. Like, you have to people still don't believe in the power of LinkedIn. I mean, I think now, 20 years later, we're seeing that people are going, hey, dude, Josh, you've been talking about LinkedIn for 10 years, like, you know, I think it's time. I'm like, yeah. You know, it's been around 20 years, it's actually turned 21 this year, you know, it's, you know, it's finally time. But I mean, that's one of the biggest things that we can think of, like, I've tried it, or I've been burnt by 3 other companies. Right? Because they went in and all they did was spam all my audience being able to go through. And I said, well, that's the whole thing. Like, if you're coming to me and saying, hey, Josh, I need leads, I'm not your guy. Right. Right? But if you need high end, high value relationships, because you wanna be able to start conversations to build relationships, because relationships in this world create massive opportunity, I got you back every day of the week. And I think that's that shift. Right? Everyone's always coming in into our company going, hey. I need I need leads. Now leads is just called is another way to go. I I don't wanna spam somebody.
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Well, you so our I mean, our companies do similar things. Right? So and and I well, I I'm a big I'm a big supporter and fans, and and I get behind all the all, you know, I'd rather have 4 or 5 of us do it right and then and I'd rather work directly with them and be like, oh my God, this isn't working. What do you guys see? Yeah, because there's so much opportunity on LinkedIn. There's like a 1,000,000,000 people on there. Right? And what I know we position ourselves. We always are trying to get away from this lead generation because then people are like I'm not getting leads. I'm like, well, yeah, you're an asshole on camera your offers aren't done. You don't want to take anything except people ready to buy in in your your sales cycles 9 months long. So I'm not sure how you're ever gonna get a lead unless you start having some conversations and Correct. I don't know if you've walked into this a few times. You're like, unless you start having conversations and start doing some live events or occasionally go to podcasts, people don't get to know you. Anybody coming to you desperate to buy is probably gonna be a bad client anyway. So my point is I've run into this a lot and we're like we don't focus on leads. We focus on the brand awareness. We focus on this and and your story and and if if you're out there listening and you're thinking about how you're doing your own personal brand, take your time be patient. Yeah.
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And and Thomas, that's why that's why I'm on here with you, brother, because I love what you do. Because you know you and I both know there's a lot of people out there that took a LinkedIn, you know, course, and now they're LinkedIn experts. They were still on Pizza Hut last week. They started the course. They didn't finish it. And I'm like and I can always tell when a new course comes out too because they get the same spam messages that go through the whole thing, and I'm like, okay. Here it comes again. And I'm like, hey, Josh. Ever thought about using LinkedIn to get leads? No. No. No. No way. I actually don't. If this is how you're doing it, like, man, I don't know who's gonna hire you. Because there's a different way to be able to do it. I mean, the things that we do on there, brother, it's it's the things that my mom taught me how to treat other human beings. We're just doing it online. Now, what'd you take on automation?
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What's your take on automation? I mean, look, you know LinkedIn, not for email. I would still have to leave that one off the table, just for specifically for LinkedIn.
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So I've always been against automation. LinkedIn's been against automation. If anyone actually pays attention, any of these tools that are out there for automation, they they update their their code every 24 hours. Because what they're trying to be able to do is stay ahead of LinkedIn. Because if LinkedIn catches you using any type of automation outside of their own, you're gonna lose your account. And, man, I've been, again, working with them with what their integration with OpenAI and what they're doing. Thomas, I've been telling people right now. I'm like, look. I get it. Again, you're trying to be able to go through, but, like, they are getting faster and faster being able to catch these automation companies. I mean, like, within hours. And so people are really putting their accounts at risk, and
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let me Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. It's so crazy because they have APIs that allow people to to for more it it's a bit confusing. They have APIs that allow these companies to legally hit and do these things. Right. But people are allowed to actually use them. And that's the one I'm get. Are they like, what are you what data are you trying to collect, and why are you doing it? You you can't, like, get that shit dirty. If you're in the marketing
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Right. But, like, dude, like, seriously, like, one of the things I had a buddy of mine call me up, and he goes, Josh, man, you know, I love your stuff. I'm always going through. I've known him for a long time. He's like, you know, I know LinkedIn's a numbers game. And I go, you're just trying to piss me off. Right? You're telling me LinkedIn's a numbers game. That means you just see if it's a we get a spam. He goes, well, I go, let me just break down some numbers for you. Because, again, anyone listening, like, if you really don't have to have automation, if you understand how the opportunities work on LinkedIn, every single one of us only gets 400 connection requests a month because of all the spammers, because of automation, they've limited everything that's out there. So if we take 400 connections, again, I use Sales Navigator. We go through to be able to identify that audience, I'm sure you all do as well, and then we actually look at who's active on LinkedIn in the last 3 days. We're very specific on how we're actually being able to connect with these people. Right? They're active. I'm not just sending a message to someone that hasn't touched LinkedIn in 2 months. Being able to go through this, if I'm trying to be able to connect with 400 people, that means I got 4 weeks. I got a 100 people a week. If I take Monday through Friday, that's 20 people a day. That's right. Anyone listening right now, if you're telling me that you can't reach out and send a 1 personal 20 personal messages a day on LinkedIn, you're lying to yourself. There's no way.
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What? Then, you know, like, honestly, then risk the VA and have someone else do it for you. But That too. Right. But by so my post today was like, should LinkedIn allow third party admin access for personal accounts? I a 100% think they should. 100% as long as it's verified and they're not and you're doing the same practices because the truth is not one executive in a Fortune 1,000 companies running their own social anyway, and in the end is and we run some of them ourselves, right exactly and it's for them and I may or may not have my team run mine, but but the I get flagged, like, daily, like, no automate. We don't even use automation. It keeps shutting my account. Like, goddamn. Like, we're not even we actually advocate against it. Can you stop sending these things to me? It's so frustrating.
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And and so there's there's a bunch of that. So, anyway, let me off my pedestal with that. And, I mean, I get hit up. I get hit off of, man, from different of these companies because they they know how much I'm in there and how how much I understand. I've got the relationship directly with LinkedIn. So I get companies all the time. Hey. I'll give you access. You know, come in. You know. I'm like, like, hey. Maybe you can help us, you know, get approved our automation platform, you know, on LinkedIn. I'm like, it ain't gonna happen. I've never seen it happen. And if they're gonna do anything, which we're continuing to see now that with the rollout with AI on there, they are doing some. And what's, dude, what's funny is I was, like, okay, they're AI posts. They know their own algorithm. They're gonna be able to write better than me. If I actually allow their AI to be able to write a post, my visibility's got at least got a 2 x. I actually had lower visibility by allowing the AI LinkedIn's AI to be able to write a post. No. Their LLM is not there yet. So, you know, they're being in because of a lot of stuff, but I'm like, come on. There's you got so much information, and there's gotta be a better way. Now once they actually get it down I mean, look, Microsoft, don't ever bet against them. They're the biggest company out there. Google is still trying to play catch up. And, I mean, once they actually go through I don't know if anyone company can with what they're doing, that partnership that they have with OpenAI, how they're leveraging LinkedIn, they're gonna be a hard company to catch. And anyone that's not putting their content on LinkedIn right now, I mean, you know, I know, post, your profile, articles. I'm seeing newsletters now get indexed within an hour on Google.
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Yeah. No. I mean, the the newsletter, I think, is actually one of the most effective things because it's actually hitting inbox of somebody. 100% inbox deliverability. Being able to go in, they get the notification,
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newsletters are becoming big right now, and I and everyone I talk to, I'm like, hey. Like, you're you're sending the email, but what if your your newsletter also got indexed by Google? Now they're getting searchable on that. And then add on top of that, it's all getting indexed by OpenAI for when generative search launches. I mean, dude, that's a win win win. Like, everyone should be putting their content on LinkedIn now more. And I keep telling people that your blog should be second.
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Is that your the index ability of my MSN network and everything that comes in behind that and the competition between the search engines. Yeah. Like, your blog should be the second place that goes. Your LinkedIn news article or articles should be the first because it'll be found quicker through a search. Oh, yeah. I can take someone's blog and be able to put it on LinkedIn, and it'll actually show up higher on Google than their own own website. I mean, even if they're spending $10 a month on SEO. You know? I mean, it's Oh my god. Let's let me start down that path. You and I could sit here and talk about all these things for a long time. Well, but here here's the thing. So it's your own journey, though, when you think about LinkedIn. I think it's so if you ever get anything from this message, we're 2 advocates of LinkedIn who are also very cautious and frustrated at times with the amount of spam just like you. And we both have this perspective of you I still think you should look for outside management of your LinkedIn so you can actually work on your business and do more important things. And your lead generation part of it, at least part of the story, should be the buy approach that you should be putting information You should be out there as a brand that people want to buy from. It might not be your only strategy, but, god, it better be part of it. I mean, it really needs to be. So I I I love what you're doing with that. Let me ask you. Let me let me pivot the question a little bit, though. Kind of what keeps you up at night now? Uh-oh. I lose you? I just lost you, brother. Oh, it's okay. I said, well, in in if we you know, I'll miss this in editing, so just enjoy this as part of the podcast. I I was saying to you, like, you know, you know, we were both guys that kinda, like, you know, are for LinkedIn, you know, to set yourself up as a buyer. Like, you might not be all you're only part of your lead generation or marketing strategy, but you wanna set yourself up as to be someone that you can buy from. The question I pivoted to is kinda what keeps you up at night as as part of your own business right now?
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What keeps you up at night? It's a good question.
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Besides a 7 month old. I'm crying.
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You know, for me, what keeps me up at night these days is truly being able to how do we actually shift where everything is going? You know, we continue to be able to get this bro marketing that's out there that teaches people how to be able to, like, oh, well, I got this and how to sell, sell, sell, and always be closing. Like, look, I love Glengarry, Glenn Ross. I mean, I lived on half this stuff as entrepreneur, but there's gotta be a better way. And what and if we don't continue to be able to shift what's happening, what's going on, and how to be able to actually truly make people, you know, understand the value of having an educated audience versus just selling someone in this TikTok era that we're in. We're not gonna see I mean, I see it in my kids already. I see the the the issue with social media right now. And this is why I love LinkedIn because people aren't going to lose themselves in someone else's life on that platform. They're going there to be able to educate themselves to be able to make a decision or to be able to get information to make a decision. That's right.
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Yeah. And I think I think LinkedIn would be very so there's 2 parts that we were talking that we got cut off there a little bit was I'm actually very surprised the, LinkedIn add in AI into the to the messaging and what to say because they're taking away what you want people to do, which is think. Be yourself, actually show yourself as a thought leader. So I wasn't a 100% behind the AI and LinkedIn piece. We're losing each other, brother. I don't know what happened. You're losing me. I'm not losing you, though. So I'm right there with you. I'm seeing some great nuggets of information here. That's great.
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I'm back on it. Can you hear me now? Yeah.
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You know what? You know, also Internet is just right here. So the satellites, it's Elon Musk's fault. Who else can we blame? George Bush? We're talking about too many people. You know? That's that's what luckily, hopefully, you have good editors. We're, we're I may just leave it in. It's more fun. Let just conscious of time. First of all, I I gotta Yeah. I want you to there's 2 more things I wanna say. So so Please. Yeah. Go ahead. The next one is, fast forward a year and look back. What are you proud of?
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Yeah. 1st and foremost, I'm always proud of my kids. I mean, what they're accomplishing, what's going on. I mean, like, everything that I do, and I think this is the biggest problem is people live to work, and they don't realize that is not the way to be able to do it. You work so you can live. Right? To be able to enjoy life, to be able to take these things. I see entrepreneurs all the time going on, and they've got laptop lifestyle. They're sitting at the beach with a laptop and working. I'm like, that sucks. I just wanna be at the beach and enjoy myself. I don't wanna be working there. You know? So for me, you know, that's the biggest thing. Like, I've really if I look back on a year, the biggest thing I'd be proud of is that my kids are getting to be able to spend more time being able to see me speak and see the changes that I'm I'm providing to this world, because that's always the the big thing for me. Like, my daughter, she thought it was funny, or thought it was one of her friends went up to her and said, hey. I see your dad, you know, on YouTube shorts. He's really inspirational. Dude, that was a huge win for me. Like, my daughter's in 6th grade. Like, for one of her friends now, she was embarrassed that she's like, oh my god, you found my dad, you know, going on this other stuff. But, like, that's a bigger win than for me than being able to land a massive client. Right? If I can actually go through there and be able to show up for the the younger generation that's why I love podcasts like this, man. Because, like, I wish I wish I had the people that I surround myself with now when I first started my company, because I didn't. And I think a lot of people don't have that. They have the people that are there to be able to have their hands out, but not to be able to high 5 them when they have success or to be able to catch them when they fall.
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Yep. The the well, the high fiving in particular of truly happy for you, not jealous or envious.
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It's it's that I did not have that. I I surrounded myself with a whole bunch of people that were like, cool. We'd love that you can pay for stuff, but, like, don't talk about it. I don't wanna hear about it. I don't wanna feel bad.
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No. You're, you're so part of the idea of cut the tie for me was, and I talked about this in my book a little bit, is tied to some people very close to your life Yeah. That you gotta really let go. And it could be friends you like hanging out with, but are they're they're okay being where they are in life, but they're also water and they easily go down. They'd wanna take you downhill with them. And it's not a bad thing. It's not like they're bad people. It's just meaning, like, you're trying to go someplace else and they're pulling you a different direction because it's it's not comfortable for them. It's different from what you were and and that's a hard thing. You'll you'll get rid of friend groups because your your needs and what you'll want and who you'll surround yourself by will change and this is a really hard one for a lot of entrepreneurs. You'll need to for some people. It's a spouse some people might be a brother or a parent even you're gonna have to if you want to be successful in my mind you in what I've seen for a lot of hundreds of interviews is you're gonna have to have the courage to cut that tie for at least a while. Let it go and truly let it go,
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and it'll come back if it needs to. Thomas, I appreciate you saying that because, again, like, look. I I have the the spouse shift. Right? And the one thing I will never do again was, as I was growing, I was not inviting her on the journey. I wasn't we were we were growing, and it the we were we had grown too far apart by the time I realized what was really happening. And she'd want me to be the person I was, and I was trying she's like, I remember it. It was, why are you trying to change the world? Why don't you just do what you do best? Make money. Right? And our gap had grown too far because I wasn't taking her on for the the mindset shifts, for the leveling up, for all those things that are going on. And I think as as entrepreneurs, we forget that. Right? We get so caught in this world that we're all by ourselves. This is also why entrepreneurs are so alone. Right? They don't forget that. We I can't change the world on my own. I tried. I almost killed myself doing it. The only way we can do change this world is together. And not only just with other entrepreneurs, but with the people that are in our lives. And we'll figure out the people that want to level up, and the people that don't, but we have to at least get that invitation for them to be able to join us on that journey.
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Yeah. And and and I'll take it a level deeper. I didn't do that with my wife the 1st year or 2. Didn't share enough about finances and what's going on, and and it was because of a fear of being, you know, your your wealth. Like, hey. I'm not making it. I used to make a half 1000000 plus a year, and now I'm not making 50 k a year. And, like, it's like you're you're afraid and you're embarrassed, and you're also, like, you're you're you're, you know, almost like, you don't have the humility to be able to take, you know, trust that person. And you can define you know, maybe you end up in the same way. And if you do because, you know, it's oh, I was right there. We got shot, then that was the problem. That's what you described.
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We we we act like Atlas with the world on our back. Right? Like, it's all on us. And we're protect and I assume you probably maybe have you were protecting them. Right? Like, I don't wanna go you were I'm protecting them. Like, I can handle it. I'm gonna take it all on. And we don't realize that stress that we're taking on is also affecting them in a in a negative fashion. We're not protecting them because, again, we're not even given the opportunity to be able to join us in the journey. So No. Absolutely. I I corrected you know, we we we saw it. We corrected it, and I think we're well, I don't even know how much better path forward to it. It's amazing that when you make that shift, how much better you feel when you can share that stuff. So Oh, yeah. My wife now, I mean, it's amazing to be able to live that one life. She left corporate. Now we run the business together, and, I mean, look. I've never been you know, there's always ups and downs that we go through, but open communication and being able to share and being a 100% us, a 100% of the time makes it so much easier. Solid.
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Hey. There's one question I should ask you today outside of how to get a hold of you, which is coming next. What was the question I should ask you?
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Most people always ask me how I get my hair to stand up, but we won't go.
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I mean, you can offer that. My guess is product. I mean, that's a simple answer right there. Here we go. Right? Simple answer. You know,
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one thing one question, possibly, you know, I built 16 different companies. You know, I've been doing this over 20 years. And the the biggest thing that I've learned over those things, and I think that's the the one thing that we didn't really go into. I've talked a lot about it here and there, but the one thing that made the shift for me, finally, is again, releasing my perception of everyone else's perception of me. Because again, I have no clue what anyone Thomas, you could have any perception you want of me. I can guess, but until you tell me, I don't know what it is. And that's what drives most of us crazy, especially as entrepreneurs. We foresee what other people perceive about us, and we have no clue what it is. Once I release that and started to be a 100% me, a 100% of the time, on and offline, my life shifted. And again, being the entrepreneur, being the husband, being the father, all these things came into alignment because I wasn't trying to be able to live this social media life that we're all taught every single day. Like, hey. Look at me. I'm leaning on this this Ferrari on the side of the street. Don't you wanna be like me? Probably not. I've met enough I mean, I would lean on someone else's Ferrari for sure. Yeah. I mean, like, that's the whole thing. Like, I don't wanna be that person leaning on someone else's Ferrari. I wanna be me. So I I think that's the biggest thing I want people to be able to take away when we're talking about getting an entrepreneurship. We forget these things. Like, again, you are enough, and real and raw eats overproduced every single time because overproduced in this world,
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we're waiting for the commercial. We're waiting for the pitch. Yep. Actually, I find some of my best shorts are when I'm driving in the car filming the road ahead, and I'm just and I put in, like, night vision or something. I just start talking in the background. They do the best. Nice. I'm what I got. I love it. I'm off camera. Yeah. My perfect world, I am not the center of any brand. I'm just the guy who thought of it and handed off. So I love it. This thank you so much for joining, by the way. This has been awesome. I I wish we had more time. I would we could we could I we could really maybe we'll do a follow-up on, like, the ins and outs of LinkedIn and just do a regular thing on that because I would love to get your perspective on it Of course. And share my mind as well for that. But thank you. I really do truly, truly do mean that. Yeah, man. No. I really enjoyed our conversation today. And, yeah, I mean, we covered
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everything from, you know, being a spouse to being a father to entrepreneurship.
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I mean, again, talk about, just a a whole full conversation today. I really, really enjoyed it. You you're gonna earn the right to get invited in to cut the tie movement. You'll get a tie sent you. Nice. That'll be that's a no it's no f around group. That's a entrepreneurs coming together to get help and help each other and learn from each other. And and I'm so I'm going to launch that this summer. I get to cut it on film. Right? So then I can actually get in. I got to find the right cult like sequences to get everyone involved. But the idea is you have to have to make some kind of verbal commitment, social media posts. You'll have to do it. Like, I am here to cut the tie and, like, what the hell is that? Like, you got to get invited in only. That's it. I love it. Here's the here's the thing, and I will leave this with people who are listening. There's too much noise and and people are expecting things too fast and overnight success and I will tell you something like LinkedIn is not built like that something like the stuff that I know we do is built on an investment in time people and relationships. And if you think about it anything different you're setting yourself up for disappointment and failure and vanity metrics and in in your just just get right. It's okay to do it. If you want to go do it you're gonna learn something You're the rat and the maze. It's about to go down the shock path, and you're not gonna go down that path after you get down there. But just just anyway, you know that. But thank you so much for coming, to the show. Yeah. Yeah. How do people get ahold of you or and and who should get ahold of you? I mean, look. If I love anyone. If they're listening to this, I wanna talk to you because, again, Thomas, you're an amazing dude. And, I mean, like, anyone that's listening to this has to be looking to be able to add value to this world. So for me, reach out, man. Find me on LinkedIn,
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you know, and but don't just smash that connect button. Right? Like, I'm not as I tell everyone, I'm not playing Pokemon on LinkedIn. I'm not trying to catch them all. This is the biggest thing why people have issue with LinkedIn. They hate their feed. They get spammed all the time. They just hit that accept button and send button all the time. Like, send me a message on why you love Thomas, why you listen to this podcast. Because not only does that help me understand who that person is, but it actually helps me get to know you better as well, Thomas.
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I'll give you last my last piece of advice. I remove 2,000 connections every month. And and and so the tool that I would like to develop is one that says, hey. These people have interacted with you in any way in 6 months, 3 months. Remove them. And I do. I remove 2,000 connections that are sometimes, you lose subscribers in your newsletter. You're like, oops. But I get rid of I get rid of people all the time, and I just keep that pretty boring. Every cold pitch every cold pitch I delete.
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Sometimes if I leave the birthdays on or the work anniversary, I'm like, I don't know who this person is. Delete. Like, LinkedIn makes it easy to be able to see who people are because if you just leave all the notifications on, they'll give you a whole bunch, and you're like, if you don't know that person, you haven't talked to them ever,
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remove them. Yeah. That easy. 100%. Agreed. And, like, listen, in my, I wish honestly, I I almost debated doing this when they because I got bought spam last year. And so I had, like, a 130,000 bots on my account. And so I was, like, because I was killing my engagement. And so I'm still trying to, like, reel down from other real ones that have been And and my engagement gets better and better and better as we kind of and I'm telling you, like, if you can do that and manage I almost almost restarted. I was like, listen, I'm just gonna go back to 0 and rebuild my whole profile from 0. I kinda wanna do it now. Yeah. If LinkedIn wouldn't ban me for having 2 accounts, I probably would do it. But, anyway, thank you. I appreciate it. Of course. Anybody who made it this point in the show, thank you so much. And if it was your first time, please come back. And if you've been here before, you rock. But, you know, the shameless ask I do always is please 5 star the Apple, Spotify, whatever you like, and and follow the YouTube channel. We got lots of good content coming out. I appreciate you for coming. Until we get, you know, until we meet again or till you listen again, get out there. Go unleash your entrepreneur. Thanks for listening.